We use data on the sources of debt finance of U.S. majority-owned foreign affiliates in 53 countries over the period 1983 to 2001 to examine the role of financial market development, and exposure to host country-specific risk on the financing choices of these affiliates. We find that total...

This paper uses firm-level data to examine the performance of India's nonfinancial corporate sector since 1989 and evaluate its financial vulnerabilities. While promising trends in liquidity, profitability, and leverage of the sector emerged in the early 1990s, they experienced a reversal after...

By constructing and estimating a structural arbitrage-free model of demand pressures on US real rates, we find that recent purchases of US government debt securities by the Fed and foreign officials have significantly affected the level and the dynamics of US real rates. In particular, by 2008,...

This paper quantifies the effects of external risks for Peru, with particular attention to two major external risks, China’s investment slowdown and the U.S. monetary policy tightening. In particular, a macroeconomic model for a small open and partially dollarized economy is developed and...

Sound corporate governance is essential for a well-functioning banking system and the integrity of financial markets. The paper discusses the corporate governance of Italian banks, its regulatory framework, and the specific challenges arising from the role played by foundations and large...

This Technical Note focuses on banking sector structure in Germany. Germany’s banking system comprises three “pillarsâ€â€”private commercial banks, public sector banks, and cooperative banks—distinguished by the ownership structure and business orientation. The German...

The observed increase in the level and volatility of Tanzania's Treasury yields in recent years against an otherwise benign macroeconomic backdrop presented a puzzle for policymakers, while raising concerns about the fiscal burden of rising debt interest payments and diversion of bank credit...

This paper assesses the impact of the geographic diversification of bank holding company (BHC) assets across the United States on their market valuations. Using two novel identification strategies based on the dynamic process of interstate bank deregulation, we find that exogenous increases in...

Understanding the impact of the asymmetric tax treatment of debt and equity on the capital structures of financial institutions is critical to shaping and assessing responses to the problem of excessive leverage that underlay the 2009 financial crisis - but there is no empirical evidence to draw...

The financial crisis that began in 2007 has brought to the fore the issues of excesses in lending, leverage, and risk-taking as some of the fundamental causes of this crisis. At the same time, in dealing with the financial crisis there have been large scale interventions by governments, often...